


leave colors wherever you go

by GeekintheCorner



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Everybody Lives, F/M, Gen, Gift Exchange, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, also this is my first romance fic and i am sorry if i failed horribly, i'm incapable of letting characters stay dead, no beta we die like darth maul on like three separate occasions, romantic and platonic soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekintheCorner/pseuds/GeekintheCorner
Summary: Soulmarks are visible evidence of a connection between souls. Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor have experienced too much pain to let themselves ever connect with someone on that level ever again. Or at least that's what they thought before they met each other.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso & Chirrut Îmwe & Baze Malbus & Bodhi Rook, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Chirrut Îmwe & Baze Malbus
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36
Collections: Star Wars Valentine's Exchange 2021





	leave colors wherever you go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildHoneyProse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildHoneyProse/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. I also didn't come up with this soulmark concept, *but* I can't remember where I read about it from. If I do I'll link the fic here.
> 
> Happy Valentine's day to my giftee! I hope you enjoy this first time attempt at this pairing and this fandom from me. I have always loved the romance between Jyn and Cassian, but I've never had the guts to try and write it before now. Hope you enjoy!

“Leave colors wherever you go.” Those were the words that Jyn Erso’s mother never stopped repeating for as long as she was alive.

“Jyn,” she would say between bleak meals and boring lessons she tried to make fun, “as long as you can color other people’s lives and they color yours, then you are free and you are loved.” 

Little Jyn never had a reason to doubt her mother’s words. She loved the way the blues left by her tiny fingers on her mother’s hand would mingle with the vibrant orange of her father’s. Sometimes she would hold her father’s palm and trace patterns among the bright yellow left by her mother’s light touches. She had never met anyone without soul colors splattered across their skin. 

Of course, sometimes she would see people with grey marks, or marks that were just barely there among the many lifeforms mingling in the marketplace she occasionally visited with her parents. Mama had said that those with grey marks had lost one of their soulmates, and that those with light marks likely had just met theirs. Jyn had tilted her head to the side, bumping up against the grey fabric of her cloak and asked, “How do you know when you meet one of your soulmates?”

Lyra had smiled softly. “When you meet someone that has the potential to positively influence your life, your soulmate, and your skin touches their skin they will leave a permanent soulmark that will never leave you.” Her mother had turned her head to look down on her daughters face. “And you, my dear Jyn, will leave a soulmark on them as well, and you will forever be connected. When you leave a soulmark you open your heart and life to the potential of friendship, family, and even romance.” Jyn had scrunched up her face at that, but Lyra simply chuckled. “Always allow yourself to be free enough to love and be loved, Jyn, don’t let such opportunities pass you by.”

The first person Jyn ever saw without a soulmark was Orson Krennic. Maybe the Imperial officer simply didn’t have any soulmarks on his head or hands, like Jyn’s yellow line on the side of her face. 

But later, as she watched her mother be gunned down and felt that same bright yellow line burn into a dull grey she knew with every molecule in her body that a monster like Krennic could  _ never _ positively influence  _ anything _ .

While eight-year-old Jyn Erso sat in the dark and desperately scrubbed at her stinging face and burning eyes she came to a conclusion. If it hurt so much to lose a soulmark, then she would never, ever, get another one again. 

When Jyn Erso met Cassian Andor she still had the same three soulmarks she had when she was eight, two faded colors on her gloved hands and one line of dark grey on her face. 

Jyn had noticed that among the rebels her gloved hands and grey soulmark weren’t out of place. The Rebels it seemed, despite their proclamations of hope and unity, were all just as scared to let themself discover soulmates as she was, the price of love in war was high after all. 

Cassian was the same, he wore head to toe coverings alongside leather gloves. His only visible soulmark was a light grey splotch on his forehead, like this kiss of a parent. Jyn didn’t stare and Cassian did the same for her. 

Baze and Chirutt had the most vibrant and consistent soulmarks that Jyn had seen since her parents died. She tried not to let her eyes drift to the purple and rusty red marks on the ship ride to rescue her father. 

_ Her father.  _ The faded green on her left palm was the last color left on her skin and her right palm burned for days after Jedha. Slowly she pulled the glove off her left hand and traced the barely there mark. 

“Is that from your father?” Chirrut’s blunt voice floated over from the other side of the ship.

Jyn’s eyes jolted up from where she had been staring at her palm. “How did you?”

Chirrut chuckled in that almost annoyingly knowledgeable way, “Soulmarks are of the force.” Like that explained anything at all. He tilted his head to the side slightly. “Neither of you,” he gestured at Cassian and Jyn, “have allowed yourselves a soulbond in many years.”

Cassian met her eyes from where he was leaning up against the back of his pilot’s chair. 

Baze laughed gruffly. “Ironically, I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more likely to be soulmates.”

Cassian lost his balance against his chair and Jyn averted her eyes to literally anywhere else aboard the suddenly much too small ship.

  
  
  


Jyn’s third and final soulmark burned gray. 

She doesn’t notice the purple marking her wrist until the middle of her meeting with the head rebels. Chirrut wouldn’t want her to give up, he would want her to fight. She traces the gray mark on her forehead and thinks that her mother wouldn’t want her to give up either.

  
  
  


The ship was crowded and loud and somehow Jyn wound up wedged into a corner of it with Cassian Andor. 

“Did you mean what you said?”

“What did I say?”

“That you aren’t going to leave.”

The rest of the ship’s noise faded into static as Cassian took one step closer to her and raised a hand towards her face. “I will do everything I can to make sure that you are never alone again, Jyn Erso.”

Without any more room for thought Jyn moved her face the last centimeter of space left between them. The tingling sensation on the side of her face as Cassian cupped her face in his hand simply confirmed what they already knew. They were with each other until the end, whenever that might be.

~~

They survived, somehow. Jyn was a bit fuzzy on the details of exactly how that happened, even so many years later. Their little never lost the moniker of “Rogues” even when the rebellion welcomed them back with honor and a warning. 

The Rogue crew became a legend among the Rebellion, but the crew itself dismantled to go their separate ways. For the most part anyway. Jyn and Cassian somehow wound up sharing quarters on the Rebel’s base, and most of their respective missions took place together. Baze and Chirrut continued to keep in contact with them, and last Jyn had heard they had liberated a farmstead from a pack of Stormtroopers on some planet she had never heard of. 

Bodhi decided to stay with the Rebels, and when he wasn’t piloting a ship on some relief mission he often found himself relaxing with a cup of tea in Jyn and Cassian’s tiny apartment. 

Jyn’s life was filled with color. Purple and rusty red from shoulder bumps and hand clasps. Navy blues from friendly punches and light hugs. And of course, dusk green painting her hands and her face, and eventually, her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed that! I did feel like I hada few flow problems, so apologies for that. I'm also sorry if the soulmark scene was too cheesy, I have a lot to learn about writing romance I think lol. Maybe leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed this, and check out my blog on [Tumblr](https://geekinthecorner.tumblr.com/)


End file.
